


O’ the Life You’ll Find in Death

by Anonymous



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: A lot more plot than previously planned, Angels, Bottom Richie, Demon losers club, Demons, Discussions about Hell, Eddie is the King of Hell, F/M, M/M, Monsters, Sexual Content, Top Eddie, human Stan and patty, slight slow burn, themes of the Christian Hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:55:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23872765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Upon the violent termination of a life he failed to feel any sense of pride in, Richie is given a second chance at happiness in an unlikely relationship with Satan himself.
Relationships: Beverly Marsh/Ben Hanscom, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris
Kudos: 13
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Death

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I realise I already posted this work and then took it down. I have my own personal reasons for doing that. A very lovely user asked my why I removed it, and their words gave me a little courage to try again, because as much as I’m embarrassed by my work, I’m excited by the concept I’m writing about.  
> This work was inspired by this drawing -> https://www.instagram.com/p/B--9t8pl7Xr/?igshid=pxecgq1yalqk

How to put it...life is meaningless. No, that’s too harsh. It’s not even wholly correct. Not  _ everyone’s  _ life is meaningless! The life of Rosa Parks was meaningful. Juana Inés de la Cruz had led a meaningful life. Thousands of everyday people contribute to the parts of life that  _ mean _ something. It’s just that there is an inseparable shameful resignation in the meaningless life and death of Richie Tozier. He died as he lived. Loud, a disturbance to the people around him, violently dramatic to a comical degree, and in a fashion which left outsiders looking on in disbelief thinking  _ there’s no way that just happened. There’s no way this is for real. _

The freak accident that would quickly turn fatal happened on a Monday afternoon, or ‘morning’ in Tozier-Time.  _ (Of course it was a Monday, nothing good happens on Mondays) _

It was bright outside in Los Angeles on the last day of his life. That’s part of why he came here in the first place from bumfuck nowhere, Maine, and that’s what he reminds himself every morning when he wakes up on a filthy couch that once was pristine white but is now stained like teeth deficient of brushing. He lost his house, missed his shot at stardom, and slowly descended into friendless isolation so secluded that even his neighbours didn't know what he looked like until he died, only what he sounded like when he would have a breakdown at four in the morning despite all of them living in rooms about a few feet in distance from each other.

So his dreams of making it big are over cause there’s no market for schlubby, manic, miserable forty year olds with tacky fashion ideas in the acting business. All he has left now are the blue skies, palm trees, and warm weather. Not that he experiences any of those wonderful things from bundled up inside his blankets all day, though. Except for the heat.

Richie spent his last day on Earth in exactly the same fashion as yesterday and every other day for the last six months since he got evicted from his last house a few miles away from the motel he’s staying at currently. He woke up at four PM, checked his phone to see how much time he had left in the day until his graveyard shift at the Alberta & Bethlehem hospital manning the front desk, and decided to buy margarita mix and junk food on the fly at the supermarket with what little he has in his meagre discretionary income. 

The beginning of the end started when he dragged himself to the front door in the pajama bottoms and ratty old G.W. Zoo shirt he was wearing while sleeping. A small white cat bounded towards the door the minute it started opening, and by the time it had gotten wide enough open to allow her skinny body to slip by her owner’s long legs, Richie was too late to prevent her from running. She’d always been curious about the outdoors.

Richie cried out in shock when he saw her furry little body go shooting like a star down the suspended outdoors hallway. 

“Phobia!” he called after her. “Trypophobia, you little bitch! Get back here!” but she continued to run as Richie chased her down the platform. 

The staircase was rapidly approaching and he watched her dart down the steps soundlessly with panic clouding his decision making skills. In a desperate dash to capture his escaped cat he failed to slow down at the start of the steps. He was on the second step when he misplaced his foot by a long shot and went hurtling forward down the stairs. Richie screamed bloody murder as he sailed down the long flight of unforgivingly hard metal steps and slammed viciously into the concrete below, snapping his neck on impact and killing him instantly, his darling kitty still running like an escaped convict a few yards away.

It’s fortunate that he felt no pain before death. The Motel enclosure was deathly silent for a long time, all the residents who heard it wondering if what they heard was real. His life was over in an instant, so quick it was barely believable. Like a prank.  _ (PRANK) Faking my death in public (GONE WRONG) _

When people came out to see what happened they stumbled across his body and stared at it almost unseeingly. One woman screamed,  _ Oh my god!  _ Another man clutched his head as he shook it in denial,  _ nonono, holy shit holy SHIT.  _

But their reactions aren’t important. An ambulance collected his body and he was buried in a properly stuffy burial by his disappointed parents. One that he never would have asked for in his advanced directive  _ if _ he had bothered to make one. He would have donated his body to science. His death was covered by local news outlets and went trending on Twitter for two days. None of that is important.

What’s important is where he went after death. Not his body, his soul. There wasn’t a waiting room where he would be judged or a staircase that stretched on into paradise. He woke up in pitch blackness with an unknown light source illuminating his body, and only his body, with the same level of light as the sun on a bright day. 

For a moment he was so disorientated, confused, and dizzy that he didn’t hear the drip, drip, dripping of water. Constant. Wet. And then he noticed the silence. It was the kind of silence that makes your ears ring just to hear something, only no ringing came. It’s like a sensory deprivation tank. His skin and clothes didn’t make noises when he moved, his breath was coming out but he couldn’t hear it, and his feet didn’t make any noise as he walked through the darkness.

And then there came the sound of a flint lighter. A real old fashioned one. One solitary flame in the darkness, a tiny little candle fire so small, almost  _ cute,  _ appeared in the darkness a foot in front of him. So he approached it. “Hello?” his voice echoed like it would inside a cave. No one answered back for a moment. Then, there was a deep, slow, rumbling laugh that sounded like it was right next to his ears and it penetrated through his skin, muscles, and right through his bones. He shivered at the sound, destiny equal parts terrified out of his mind...and equal parts flushed, elated,  _ alive.  _ The irony was not lost on him.

“Do you know where you are, you sad little man?” purred a feminine voice, also deep but not as deep or as masculine as the first one. It raised goosebumps on his skin, but failed to make him shake. He craved the feeling again, having never felt like that before. Richie shook his head nervously. The disembodied voice laughed, and the way the laughter sounded  _ sultry, bubbly,  _ and  _ lady-like  _ (The smallest bit cruel as well) confirmed for Richie that it wasn’t the same person. “No worries, none at all. You are in  _ Hell,  _ my pet.” the voice informed him affectionately. Richie blanched.

“H- _ Hell?!”  _ he cried. The voice laughed raucously at him once more. A gigantic red paw with gnarled claws curling dangerously like deadly scythe blades swung out of the shadows, spread open as one might ask you to shake their hand. 

“Take my hand, Richard Tozier.” he gasped—how could she know my name?—“Go on. Take it.” the hand wiggled slightly for emphasis, beckoning him. When he placed the palm of his hand flat against hers it was dwarfed until it looked like a baby’s hand in its mother’s. Not an easy feat, given that he’s been six-foot and way too large for his own good ever since he bloomed late into his adolescence. The claws wrap around his hand all of a sudden and fear spikes through him in cold stalagmites straight through his heart as she pulls him into the darkness and out of the spotlight. 

Her footsteps make a loud clicking noise as they walk. His steps are silent. The steady drip, drip, drip of the cave fades into the background. The sound of a crackling forest ablaze with fire grows louder and louder the further they venture into the darkness. In his chest Richie feels the thundering of his own heart in constant, resigned fear. He doesn’t let go of her hand, as much as he wants to, knowing in his heart that if he did then he might be lost forever into the nothingness of his surroundings. 


	2. Bewitchment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie finds himself in Hell and faces Satan.

It’s uncertain to Richie how long he and the disembodied voice wandered through that dark limbo between the place where he woke up and their destination. With nothing else to think about, Richie mulled over his situation. 

_ So I’m in hell. _

_ I must be dead. _

_ How did I die? I need to find out how I died… _

_ Oh, shit. I don’t even remember what my life was like. But I’m going to Hell, right? I must have been bad. I just wish I knew what I did… God, I hope I wasn’t a pedophile or an abuser. Then again that probably automatically disqualifies me as either of those th-  _ he cried out soundlessly, slamming face first into something firm and round. In his musings he had failed to notice when the hand holding his stopped moving. Richie rubbed his injured nose soothingly and squinted up at the darkness as if he could make out the shape of the creature in front of him. 

He got his wish when a rectangle door slid open with the heavy, resistant sound of stone against stone and bright orange light outlined the curvy figure of a creature the height of a monster truck. As he gawked at her back, the wings sprouting out of it, her tree trunk legs, the long tail swishing at her feet, he wondered to himself how she would fit through that human-sized door. 

“Turn around and close your eyes, my pet.” she ordered, and he obeyed her, covering his eyes with his hands for good measure. There was a sound like a floorboard being bent to it’s limit behind him, the click of high heels, and then the board-bending sound again. “You may turn around, my dear, and walk through the Gateway.” she instructed. When he saw her 

again it was just her red legs against a backdrop of eternal flames on the other side of the door. 

  
  


Once he joined her on the other side he became spatially aware that there was a wall of fire that stretched into a dark red abyss a few yards in front of them. The floor was red rock underneath their feet. For the first time since meeting her he could see the entirety of his guide in the flickering light of the hellfire, and she was unexpectedly beautiful. She might have been as tall as an elementary school building, been covered head to toe in red skin, and had oxen horns growing out of her forehead and a cattle tail out of her behind, but she could easily be considered  _ elegant.  _

The smile she gave him was cruel and condescending. She wore a split open steel collar around her neck with the beginning of the chain dangling as a broken silver stub over her collarbone and a metal heart attached to the last chain. A silver septum piercing with a red gem dangled from her nose. The wings that he saw folded against her back were outstretched before him, impressive with their pitch black colour which faded into the rest of her red skin. All she wore for clothing was a simple black dress with a chain for a belt buckle, cinching the velvet at her hourglass hips. But most impressive of all was the red hot flames curling upwards from her scalp in the place of normal hair.

“Aww, I  _ love _ that expression. The same one every man gives me when we first meet. I love the sheer  _ terror  _ on your face, it’s so... _ invigorating _ .” she smiled and her lips curled. One mammoth hand of hers snatched Richie off of the ground and brought him up to meet her yellow irises with slit black pupils. “I think I’ll put you in my collection, don’t you think?” she seemed pleased, but glanced at the wall of flames and rethought it, one forked tongue flicking out from between her plump lips like a snake sniffing the air thoughtfully.

“No...you’re not even one of my charges. You perpetuated misogyny in life with your callous ‘jokes’, even if you believe yourself to be a leftist. But you’re too  _ nice,  _ you’re too  _ moral.  _ You’d never lay a hand on anyone who wasn’t endangering you or someone else. You’re just not  _ faithful  _ enough to go to Paradise. Plus, I smell something else on you, something  _ unique. _ I suppose my Lord will be wanting you.” she told him. He trembled with fear in between her thumb and forefinger while she mulled the decision over. Then, she looked him in the eyes and smiled a sly smile.

“Oh,  _ yes.  _ You are a complicated case, Richard. My Lord is going to  _ love you. _ ” Richie whimpered at that. “My name is Beverly, by the way. I receive, handle, and am in charge of the torture and damnation of all witless,  _ disgusting _ men who walk the cycle of misogyny and abuse or rape. I personally own over ninety percent of the damned souls who come into hell.”

Beverly kept him in the giant palm of her hand as she walked towards the fire and continued to speak, explaining the world—or Underworld—of Hell and what it entails. Essentially she is a right-hand-woman to Satan himself. According to her, to be punished by Beverly, the demon spirit of the oppressed, is something of a rarity in this twisted pit of despair. 

“There are just so many crooked men in Hell that you’ll only be personally tortured by me if you’re one of the most vile, despicable men in existence.” she told him. Something in her voice is disturbingly soothing, and so somehow along the way he falls asleep in her hand like Thumbelina or Tinkerbell, not even realizing that she had steadily grown in size as she was talking.

When he awoke once more he found himself on warm, hard ground. The red stone pulsed beneath him like a living thing, and he could feel it in the exposed parts of his skin like his hands, arms, and face. He blinked through dreadfully dry eyes and turned over onto his hands and knees, slowly rising to his feet. All the blood rushed to his head and momentarily he felt either his eyes close or his vision go black.

Shaking his head did little to dispel the dizziness so he forced himself to focus his eyes on his surroundings. To the best of his ability, he could see that he had woken up on a circular stone platform surrounded by a fence of writhing hell flames. A gust of hot air rushed over him and nearly sent him flying backwards. The flames flickered like candles. Richie turned around and faced the head of the largest monster he’d ever seen before in his life.

Paralysed, his heart racing, Richie stared up at the colossal head staring back at him with skeptical blood red eyes, the colour of it spilling out of the eye sockets and down the inner corners like dripping blood. It had a mouth the size of a megalodon, slightly open like the mouth of a cave ready to swallow Richie whole if it mercifully chose to forgo the process of chewing him into a bloody, fleshy pulp with its two sets of razor sharp teeth that hung from its black upper gums like stalactites and rose from the lower gums like stalagmites.

It was much more stereotypical of a creature from hell than Beverly had looked, the way two sets of ram horns grew out of the top of the skull and two goat ears the size of cars or buses casted shadows over the stone. Maybe the pentagram tattooed on its forehead was a bit much, but how obvious was too obvious in hell? Especially when you look like  _ that  _ even without the symbolism.

“S-S-S-Satan I’m guessing?” squeaked Richie. Relief washed over him when the creature began to utter an echoing laugh...a deep, familiar one. Desire entranced him until he realised that Satan had just said something to him.

“S-Sorry? What?” Richie asked and then almost slapped himself for not listening to Satan himself when he spoke, knowing well and good that his mother would have something to say about this if she were here. Satan frowned and Richie bit his lip.

“You ought to listen to me when I speak, Tozier. I can make eternity unbearable for you if you speak to me with intolerance.” he said, and his booming voice sent strands of Richie’s hair flying backwards with the breeze.

“ _ Anyways _ , as I was saying before you  _ lost your focus. _ ” he began to speak once again. The more he talked, the deeper Richie’s mind tumbled into the soundwaves of his gruff voice. The silver metal rings in his ears and the silver metal chains hanging from a band around each of the first pair of horns on his head sparkled enticingly in the light of the flames. Unconsciously his feet began to move, one foot after another, until he was walking towards Satan.

“What are you doing? Why are you approaching me?” Satan asked. 

“Your voice...I heard it before…” Richie mumbled, creeping closer, transfixed on the foggy red of Satan’s eyes. “When I first came here…”

“What?” Satan frowned deeply. Even in his hypnotised state Richie could tell that this behaviour was abnormal to him. Numbly, he saw his arms outstretched into the air before him, reaching out for his goal, and his goal was Satan’s face. He was closing in on him very quickly. What he would do when he got to him, Richie didn’t know.

“Your voice...I don’t know why...why is it so…?”

“Hang on, this isn’t—this isn't right. I’m not supposed to be desirable in this form, what’s going on?” Satan muttered to himself, searching Richie’s expressionless face for clues. He stared at the human’s tiny hands, flexing and grabbing for something just out of reach. Absently he shook his head and reached out with a massive furry hand and covered Richie’s head. Once darkness descended over his eyes, Richie’s hands fell to his side. When Satan uncovered his eyes he saw that they were shut as he had intended and so he caught the human’s limp form in his palm, just as he began to fall, to save him from hitting the stone.

With the tiny human gently concealed in his hand, Satan slithered backwards into a misty, unfathomable abyss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it’s been a minute since I posted the first chapter—I apologise for that. I hope to come out with the third chapter soon!


	3. Horror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie and Satan meet again inside the castle

Upon opening his eyes he was treated to a view of the red velvet fabric roof above the king sized canopy bed. Richie awoke not too long ago to find himself tucked into downy soft blankets lying on his side with his face sinking into the satin case of a pillow, a river of drool leaving a moist dark patch near his mouth. The room was lit only by the sunset orange glow emanating from various candles and glass concealed open flames. 

After having wallowed in his own anxiety and confusion for a sufficient amount of time he decided to slip out of the bed and walk to the draped velvet curtains. They were heavy and had very little give when he pushed them aside to look outside the tall window. The sight before him was a jarring one. Some distant sunset orange light illuminated the courtyard made out of red cobblestone. Hugging the wall of the building at the base was a bush sprouting wilted black roses, and dark green ivy vines crept up the walls.

The door to the bedroom swung open, the sound of its creaking hinges startling Richie enough to make him jump and his heart race. He spun around to face the intruder, the palms of his large hands slammed firmly against the window with the force of the impact causing a loud bang that didn’t do his racing heart any favours. 

Seeing the colossal version of Satan from before made this smaller version of himself hard to visually process, especially since by human standards he was perhaps over seven foot, dwarfing even a tall man like Richie. It was only now that he realised that both the ceiling and the doorway were sized to accommodate the demon’s height.

“S-Stay back!” he warned the demon and wondered to himself how he could possibly hope to protect himself in this situation. The look that Satan gave him was quite clearly unenthused, and he shut the door behind him with a quiet click. He rolled his eyes—from closer up he could see tiny white dots for irises—and walked around the bed to approach Richie with his palms faced outward in a gesture of peace, as if to say “No weapons here!” which is a funny sentiment given that Satan himself wouldn’t need weapons to do damage.

“I said stay back!” Richie cried. He backed into the corner when Satan pressed on, constantly glancing back at the bed, mentally calculating exactly how vulnerable it would make him if he made a mad dash and leaped across the mattress to get to the door. 

“And I don’t  _ care  _ what you said.” replied Satan. He sounded almost bored...or frustrated. Like he was trying to catch a spooked cat to take it to the vet. The tip of his long whipcord tail swayed and brushed the carpet gently behind him as he approached, an arch forming further up out of anticipation and nervous energy. It flickered and twitched every so often, like a current of electricity was running through it.

Without looking at where he was going, Richie’s spine jostled a black metal pole supporting a three pronged candle holder. Luckily, the candles weren’t lit. He brandished it like a sword and thrust it out at Satan in a weak attempt at self-defence. “Ha!” he cried maniacally. “Taste this!” 

—-

Satan’s bushy black brows furrowed and he squinted at Richie in disbelief. When Richie showed no intention of putting the pole down, a vein throbbed in Satan’s temple and his hairless tail leaped out like a whip and snatched it out of his hands, tossing it carelessly behind him with a loud clatter. Richie let out a horrified gasp, his hands flew to his mouth, and he pressed himself flat into the corner of the wall.

“Y’know, I felt kind of  _ bad _ for you at first, but now you’re just being  _ annoying. _ ” he growled. Richie shrunk further in on himself as Satan crowded him in. Beyond the red clouding his vision and the frustration pulsing in his veins, he could hear a faint wheeze in Richie’s breath getting louder and louder.

“ _ Get up off the ground _ . I have the maids scrub it every week, but the floor is still fucking filthy. Get up! Now!” he demanded. The terrified whimper Richie let out was audible now. He obeyed and rose up on shaky knees clutching the wall, subconsciously not leaving his front exposed.

“Much better. Now, what are you trying to blend into the wall for?” Satan asked. Richie’s expression was disbelieving.

“I-I’m trying to get away from you, whaddayou  _ think? _ ” he said.

“What?” It seemed as if Satan had forgotten himself for a moment, because he froze and looked down at himself with consideration and shrugged when he looked back up, rubbing his tan neck with a furry hand. “Oh. I see.” he stated simply. Richie let out a panicked laugh. 

_ “Yeah. Oh.”  _ he restated slowly and loudly.

“Look, I…” Satan started and then broke off. What, is he supposed to say he isn’t usually like this? And why is it so hard to just say he’s sorry? Two words, “I’m sorry.” Why won’t they leave his lips? 

“I’m uh….I have more important business to attend to.” he growled in Richie’s face and pointed one deadly claw at the door. Richie screwed up his handsome features into a grimace—one that Satan felt internally. “I don’t care where you go, or what you do, so long as you don’t leave the courtyard without my permission.” Richie opened his mouth to argue but Satan steamrolled over him, “This is  _ non negotiable.  _ You  _ will  _ stay within the bounds of the courtyard. There are horrible things in this domain. Unless you want to join the damned, I suggest you do as I say.” Satan spit, jabbing his claw into Richie’s chest. 

“Or suffer for eternity. See if I care.” he added in indignantly.

The nod that Richie gave him satisfied his anger, so Satan whirled around and stormed out of the bedroom like a tornado, snatching up the pole on his way out.

—

Richie was frozen with anxiety as he watched him go, but once the door was shut and his heels click-clacked away, his body slowly loosened with relief. Gingerly, he walked his way over to the bed and turned around in front of the edge of it just before plopping himself down, the springs squeaking and mattress bouncing under his weight. He buried his face in his hands, smothered the tail end of a long sigh behind his palms, and fell flat on his back on the mattress, making it bounce again underneath him.

Stewing in frustrated, thoughtful silence for a while did nothing to dispel his mental anguish or fix things. Well, he  _ could _ see one special side to his situation. Before he died and woke up in this undead, luxurious castle, he was just barely managing to survive in a dingy Motel in the bowl of a city that was carved out of the unrealised dreams of millions as well as populated by annoying Youtubers and influencer wannabes. Also, he had no friends, a horrible credit score, and crippling anxiety triggered IBS. 

He had promised his parents he would make good on his decision to drop out of college and pursue something in the realm of entertainment, and though he doesn’t know it, his only brief moment of televised fame was when the news reported on his horrific and gruesome death. 

And it sucks phenomenally because he got so depressed he could barely get out of bed just before his death because he realised just how much of a tragic cliche his dreams really were, opening him up to the realisation that his parents probably knew he’d fail all along...that they probably never really believed in him in the first place…aaaaand that concludes that train of thought—time for some  _ less _ painful negatives.

Objectively, this sucks. He’s trapped in a castle in Hell, it’s decorated like something out of Interview With a Vampire, and it’s really hot and stifling in this room. Plus, all this dark, elegantly carved wood is just reminding him of the one time he visited England as a kid and went to one of the many Victorian houses they run tours in. It’s like if he puts too much weight on any one thing, he’ll break it in two and a crowd of employees will come rushing over to admonish him for destroying a piece of history. Which means it’s a weird clash that the mattress is so modern and bouncy and comfortable. Didn’t they use cotton back then, not memory foam?

Plus there’s the fact that Satan is here. Arguably, he hasn’t done a thing to Richie so far except yell at him, so it’s not like he’s imposing himself as more of a threat than your average middle aged guy with road rage. He’s very anxiety inducing though. 

But there’s also something…strange about him that just...makes Richie’s soul draw tight like strings on a violin fretboard and twang in pizzicato for him when he speaks. For some reason it was less effective a little bit ago compared to when they first met, but maybe it has something to do with the fact that he massively reduced his own size. His colossal form had a voice like the moon and Richie was just a fluid tide following his beckoning, but his eight foot form only seems to make his body quiver and his soul tug. Whatever that’s about.

While he was staring at the ceiling, Richie’s stomach growled loudly in protest over not having had food since before Richie fell asleep mid-day yesterday. He groaned loudly and sat himself up, shifting off the bed to stand and start searching around the castle for some food.


End file.
